Shhhhh don’t mention the maternal deaths.

Georgia officials have dissolved a committee responsible for investigating deaths of pregnant women in the state, after one or more members leaked confidential information about deaths linked to the state’s strict abortion laws.

In a letter sent to members of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC), Georgia health commissioner Kathleen Toomey said an investigation failed to identify those responsible for the leak, so all current members would be removed.

The news – first reported by ProPublica – comes two months after the outlet published stories on the deaths of two women the panel ruled were preventable and linked to the state’s strict abortion ban.

See also: Galway University Hospital and the death of Savita Halappanavar.

Since June 2022, Georgia has prohibited all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, when many women might not know they are pregnant, except in cases of rape, incest or when necessary to prevent “irreversible physical impairment” or death of the mother.

Amber Thurman, 28, and Candi Miller, 41, both died that same year, following rare complications involving the FDA-approved abortion medications mifepristone and misoprostol prescribed from out of state.

Thurman waited 19 hours at a Georgia hospital before doctors performed a rare procedure – prohibited by the state abortion ban with few exceptions – needed to expel fetal tissue from the uterus that had not been fully cleared by the abortion pills. By the time she was taken into surgery, Thurman had developed acute sepsis. She died on the surgery table.

Which is exactly what happened to Savita Halappanavar.

The anti-abortion fanatics, Catholic and otherwise, prefer the death of the woman and the fetus to the termination of a failed pregnancy.

ProPublica’s reporting on Thurman and Miller, published in September, drew widespread outrage especially among pro-choice activists who argue strict abortion bans put women’s lives in danger.

And why do they argue that? Because it’s true. Catholic hospitals adamantly refuse to terminate miscarriages and that does indeed put women’s lives in danger.

Committees to investigate maternal deaths exist in every state. Georgia’s now-disbanded panel featured more than 30 experts, including 10 medical doctors.

Georgia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the US, the only industrialised country in the world where rates of infant and maternal mortality are growing.

Isn’t that just wonderful? Makes me so proud to be a Namurrican.